The Hofstadter Recollection
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Set during The Justice League Recombination. Penny's trying as hard as she can to do something that she doesn't want to do-pretend that she doesn't long for Leonard.


**This contains massive spoilers for "The Justice League Recombination." You've been warned!**

**This is my interpretation of what Penny was thinking during parts of this ep. Sorry if it appears jumpy.**

_I'd tell you I miss you but I don't know how. I've never heard silence quite this loud. – Taylor Swift_

* * *

"Forget it, Zack, I'm not going to that stupid party," Penny snapped, spinning on her heel and heading up the stairs.

"But babe…"

"_No freaking way_!" She shrieked, picking up the pace as she fled the scene in a desperate attempt to reach her apartment. It occurred to her as she reached her door that she may have overreacted, but she didn't want to return and apologize and have to watch the guys get even more excited about their costumes. Those stupid costumes.

Stupid.

But kind of awesome at the same time.

"Don't make me do this," she said to no one in particular; she was alone in the apartment. Alone. _That_ was an understatement. She sighed. The entire plan had backfired-not in it's intended literal purpose, but in the underlying meaning.

It was the following day, New Year's Eve, when she saw Zack again. He showed up at her door with the costume. "Please, babe?"

"Zack, you're not going to convince me." She crossed her arms and remained where she was in the doorway, not letting him by.

"Please?" He put his head slightly to the side. "We're trying to win a prize here, and Leonard said that if we had a Wonder Woman we'd have an edge on the competition."

"Leonard said that?" Penny asked, her voice sounding higher than it normally would.

Zack gave a little laugh, like she was stupid. "I just said that, babe."

Penny gave a deep sigh. "Fine." She reached out and took the bag.

Zack grinned. "Told you I'd convince you. Come on, it'll be worth it!"

She gave him a level stare. "No, you didn't," she said after a moment, spinning on her heel and heading for the bathroom to change.

She put on the costume, adjusted it, and looked in the mirror. _Come on, it'll be worth it!_ "Good joke," she said quietly. Zack wasn't worth this; she'd gotten back together with him to _avoid_ memories of last year, and here they were, exploding in front of her face.

"_Penny?" Are you ready?" _

She remembered the tone of his voice, how he was patient and eager at the same time, not wanting to anger her but at the same time reminding her that they had to hurry.

"_One second!" She called, just a little irritated. Ever since she vetoed his idea of them dressing up for the New Year, she wanted him to be impressed by what she would wear on their evening out. He'd always told her that she looked beautiful in blue, and it went so well with her blonde hair, so she'd donned a mid-tone blue dress and put on the blue earrings that her mother had given her before she'd left her homeland for California. Taking one last look at herself in the mirror, she put on her playful and suggestive look and headed out into the living room._

_She knew within seconds that her extra primping had the desired effect on her boyfriend. Leonard laid eyes on her and his jaw dropped. "Wow," he managed after a moment._

"_Like it?" she said, twisting gently from side to side to make the dress swirl around her legs._

"_Yeah," he said, his eyes going from her feet up to her face, then back down and up again. "You look wonderful."_

_She stepped toward him and planted a kiss on his lips; her technique not like usual because she was smiling so much. Two hours until they kissed at midnight._

"Penny? Are you ready?"

She was jolted back to reality with that painful reiteration of the past. _Goddamn it!_ "Yeah," she said flatly, exiting the bathroom. She held the wig in her hand, dropping it on the table as Zack raced out the door ahead of her.

_I can't do this, _she thought, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a just – as – heavy sigh. But she'd already committed…she glanced at the black wig again. No way was she covering up her hair.

"Let's get this over with," she said flatly, joining Zack across the hall. She really, really didn't want to do this, and Sheldon harping on her about that stupid wig was only making it worse. Why couldn't Wonder Woman be blonde? There must be some parallel universe in which she was; Leonard told her that every possibility of everything existed somewhere.

"You're embarrassing me in front of my friends."

She'd zoned out of the conversation for the most part, just reiterating that she wouldn't wear the wig, but Zack's words hit the most raw nerve in her body.

"You're embarrassing me in front of my friends."

Like Leonard and Sheldon and Howard and Raj were_ Zack's_ group. Like they'd been friends for years and now she was there as the girl on his arm. Like Leonard and Sheldon and Howard and Raj were his.

Zack's.

_Your friends? Yours? They're not yours! They're mine. Mine! They're my engineer and my shy astro physicist and my wackadoodle neighbor and my…_

_My…_

She felt her chest constrict around her lungs, ever so slightly. "You know what? I changed my mind." She knew the instant that she said she wasn't going she'd hurt their chances of winning and they'd be disappointed in her. But going would make Zack happy, and she couldn't forgive him for implying that the guys were closer to him than they were to her.

When he came to her door she refused to see him, and she would have refused Sheldon too, except that his persistent, frantic knocking scared her just a little bit; afraid that that always present fear that one day he'd collapse into pure, unquestionable insanity had come to reality. Then he'd told her that the costume didn't make her look fat, only because the women who wore it were typically "beefy" so she was nothing new.

But she didn't take the costume off.

Because a tiny part of her didn't want to.

Because the Penny that had gotten her geek on with Leonard dozens of times last year had been cooped up for months and she wanted to be that girl again.

Because she wanted to see Leonard wearing that Green Arrow costume again; because she didn't – he looked way too adorable for safety.

Because she saw how Leonard looked at her when she entered wearing that costume.

And despite Sheldon's brutally honest comments, she wanted to stay in that costume because of one look from Leonard that she could have misinterpreted.

Then there was another knock at the door. "Go away, Sheldon."

"It's Leonard."

"Oh." She hesitated. "Go away, Leonard."

But he persisted. He always did. And she let him in because…well…it just seemed like the right thing to do.

"I'm not going to that party, Leonard."

And the first thing out of his mouth was "you don't have to wear the wig." She sighed, grateful that someone in this world understood her, at least as much as she allowed herself to be understood. And he stayed with her, swearing that he tried to do what she asked and be friends with Zack, and though she swore she wouldn't breathe a word of it to anyone, she told him why she was actually dating Zack again.

That moment made her more vulnerable to her feelings; they came bubbling up on her and she told Leonard what she wanted to say from the moment she'd walked into his apartment that day. "You make a cute Green Arrow."

Fine. So it wasn't Green Arrow. That wasn't the point of the comment.

"If Zack and I had just gone to a club or a regular party it would have been fine, but all this…with the costumes, and you…"

"What about me?"

She started. She hadn't meant to say that much…well, she had; the Penny speaking at that moment wanted to talk about her feelings, and Leonard was The Guy that always listened. She'd just forgotten that she was speaking _with_ The Guy she was speaking _about_.

_You…_

_You…_

She couldn't let go of his gaze, couldn't break this invisible bond that was tying their eyes together across the room.

_Because being reminded of you hurts so badly._

_Because I miss the world that I shared with you._

_Because I'm still afraid and I wish fear didn't exist so I could be happy._

"Nothing. Let's go to the party." She stood and put on the wig. "How do I look?" She said, imitating the look that she'd given him the previous New Year's Eve.

"Um…" he said, hesitating, and she told herself that it was because he remembered the year before, and that he wasn't hesitating because she looked stupid with her blonde hair still showing. "I guarantee you'll be the prettiest girl there."

She felt herself warm when he said that, giving him a smile that she knew matched the feeling that was burning inside of her.

"Three, two, one!"

The comic book store cheered, Penny along with them; she was still so psyched that they actually had won the contest. She'd actually found herself enjoying the party and by the time they were ready to announce the winners, and when she knew that one of the Justice League teams was the winner, she couldn't help herself; she grabbed Leonard's arm and squeezed it in anticipation, glad he asked her to come.

Her New Year's cheer evaporated when Zack spun her around and put his mouth on hers. She half-heartedly returned the kiss, caught up in the first moments of the brand new year.

Then she saw Leonard.

_Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!_

_The silly string flew and kazoos blared out their off – key notes. Penny flung her glittery coin purse in the air and didn't notice where it landed; it was empty anyway. And she spun around and threw her arms around Leonard's neck. She felt his arms encircle her waist and pull her against him, and their lips met. The kiss lasted longer than all the other midnight kisses in that club; she made sure of that. Because they were the best couple there, and she wanted everyone to know._

Zack's lips left her mouth and went to her neck; she stood their stiffly as her eyes met Leonard's again. Zack finally pulled back and put his arm around her, and she exchanged another glance with the most adorable Green Lantern in this or any other universe. Suddenly, she didn't want to be here anymore. She wanted to go and find that stupid time machine that the guys had bought years ago and take it back to the year before. Back to when she was happiest.

**I know I got some of the dialogue wrong, hopefully it's close enough. And I wrote this while my parents talked about my mom's work and my sister watching winter family films. So I was a bit distracted. But hope you like it anyway! Let me know with a review!**


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